


The Life Of Bucky Barnes

by Livesindreams



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 00:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livesindreams/pseuds/Livesindreams
Summary: Bucky Barnes has always been depressed, but after his last serious relationship breakdown, things took a turn for the worse. Follow as he tries to piece his life together and learn to live again.





	The Life Of Bucky Barnes

After his last breakup, Bucky found himself heading in a downward spiral. He'd fallen into a deep depression which lead to him sleeping all day, forgetting to take his medication, and feelings of worthlessness which ultimately lead to suicidal thoughts.

His ex had wanted to stay friends and Bucky was quick to agree, after all he didn’t want to lose the person who had meant so much to him over the last three years. Someone who he thought he was going to marry and live together until they got old. Being friends in the end worked out better than them dating, and if asked Bucky would tell you that he's happy they're friends and that dating was the worst thing for them. However, secretly, if they were to get back together Bucky would do it in a heartbeat (even if he didn't want too) because he cared too much about them and wanted them to be happy.

As a result of his depression, Bucky found himself falling behind in all of his classes. He hadn't fail any yet, but he was close to it. After month of drowning himself in his sorrows, his best friend Natasha had had enough of watching him pitying himself and suffering.

 

“Get up. Now,” Natasha told him, grabbing the sheets that he had wrapped around himself. “It's 3 in the afternoon, you're not sleeping away another day, I've had enough.”

“Leave me alone, I'm tired,” Bucky mumbled and pulled the sheets back.

“That's your problem, you're always tired. Jesus Buck. Look at this place, it stinks! There's beer can everywhere and honestly I don't think I've seen you shower in the last two weeks.”

“You're not my mother, leave me alone.”

“No, I'm just your best fucking friend who is tired of watching you suffer. I'm not going to watch you crumble away. Do you want to feel like this forever?”

“Obviously not! But it's not like I have much of a choice! Nothing is working!”

“Of course nothing is working! When was the last time you went outside? Buck, all you do is take medication and then sit in bed on your laptop for a couple of hours and then have enough sleep for two people. No wonder shit isn't working, you're not trying to get better!”

“I am trying! I'm trying so fucking hard, what do you want me to do when getting up in the morning is too fucking hard.”

“Bucky, I've seen you try and this isn't it. This is you wasting away and making your depression worse. Do you even want to get better? Are you willing to try?" 

“Of course I am! I don't want to feel this way forever…”

“Then get your ass up and get changed. Meet me at the front door in ten minutes. This is your birthday present, you're getting my life coach package.”

“I still can't believe people pay you to scrutinise every aspect of their life.”

“The people who pay me don't have that same attitude, they want someone to tell them where they're going wrong, so they can improve. Now quit stalling and get out of bed.”

 

Natasha left the room and Bucky just stayed curled up on a ball - really it would only take him five minutes to get ready so he had another five minutes of just hyping himself up so that he could get out of bed. But it wasn’t as easy as he thought; his body became heavy and his legs became painfully stiff. It was like he had taken sleeping tablets and his body was now in that drowsy staged where he had to fight to stay awake.

 

_“C’mon on, Bucky. Get out of bed. It ain’t that difficult.”_

 

But it was that difficult. He groaned and pulled his blanket over his head and laid there for a few minutes. Why was it so difficult just to get out of bed? This is what he was talking about with Natasha, he is trying! It’s just that even simple tasks like getting out of bed felt like moving the Earth. He rolled to the side and eventually managed to dragged himself inch by inch out of his bed until he was flat on the floor next to it. After getting himself out of bed, the rest was simple. He grabbed a pair of sweats that he hadn’t washed in over a month, and a t-shirt that at least didn’t smell bad, from his chair of clothes, and got ready.

 

“12 minutes, but I’ll allow it,” Natasha told him, as she say him walking down to meet her. She smiled at him when he reached her, and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah well, at least one of us is.”

“Small achievements, Bucky. We’re not asking for miracles here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where we going anyway?”

“We’re going a walk and to get groceries. It’ll be fun, I’m tired of doing the shopping on my own anyway, I never know what to get you.”

“It’s simple. Whatever is quick and easy to make. I don’t have time to do this whole cooking thing.”

“Yeah and that’s the problem. You need to eat healthier. Lucky for you, I already eat healthy and bulk cook my meals. It ain’t going to be a problem to do yours as well.”

“Oh great, healthy eating and exercise, the miracle cure for everything,” Bucky told her and rolled his eyes at her. Everyone told him that he just needed to go a walk and eat some fruit and ‘everything would be better’ but it was a load of bullshit. His depression had already sunk its claws into him and nothing that simple was going to get him out of it.

“Oh shut up. It’s been scientifically proven to work as part of a recovery plan. You remember what I’m doing my PhD in, yeah?”

 

Clinical psychology. She wanted to help change the way people felt about themselves and improve the lives of others after the shit upbringing that she had had that had left its own scars on her. She’d told Bucky some stories about it but never delved into much detail, apparently some things stayed between her and her therapist. For someone who wanted people to open up to her, she wasn’t very good at doing the same thing.

After a pause, Bucky sighed. He knew he’d been defeated, he couldn’t argue with her because ultimately she knew more than him about this sort of stuff. But secretly he would hold his reserves because deep down he knew that it wasn’t going to work. Something so basic wouldn’t work on him.

 

“Are you ready now? Can we get on with the rest of our day?”

“Sure. It’s not like I can stop you. Where we going for this walk?”

“Around campus, it’s about an hour, and then we’ll take the car out and grab some food for the week.”

“That sounds like … A lot.”

“Yeah but once you’re out doing it, it won’t feel like it. It’s the getting started that always sucks.”

 

On their walk, Natasha spent the majority of the time telling Bucky what she planned on doing as part of her ‘complete package’ as his life coach. She was going to bulk cook his food for him, so that all he had to do was stick it in the microwave - no cooking involved. She’d wake him up in the morning and the two of them would go a walk together, to get him up and out. She was tired of him being asleep when she left in the morning and when she returned in the evening - that was something that had to stop. Then she brought up the topic of therapy and seemed to hit a nerve with Bucky.

 

“Look Buck, I’m just saying eventually you’re going to need to talk to someone about your issues, someone who is trained. It’s the only way you’ll truly recover from this. You really need to talk to someone.”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone. It won’t help, just talking about it. What’s that gonna do, huh? Nothing. Besides, it’s not like I have the money for it anyway. Therapy is expensive as fuck.”

“Talk to your parents, I know they’d be happy to give you some more money to help you out with this. Your parents are in the medical field, they know the worth of a psychologist… Have you even told them about how you’re feeling?”

“What? No, of course not. If I told them, they’d just break it down to biology, and really what use is it to know that depression physically changes the brain’s chemistry. That’s not going to fix things! It’ll either go away or it won’t, it’s as simple as that.”

“Whatever, Bucky. It’s not really that simple, you’ve got to work to get yourself out of it or else you might be stuck in it forever. But fine, I’ll drop the therapist. If you change your mind let me know because I know some great places that’ll be able to help you.”

 

Once they reached the grocery store, it felt like one fight after another, with Natasha offering suggestions with Bucky either shutting it down or acting like he didn’t care about it. In the end, Natasha completely stopped asking for his opinion and just bought the food she would normally eat but this time got enough for two. Bucky was going to eat healthy, and if he didn’t like the food, tough. Maybe it would make him learn that next time he needed to be a little more cooperative rather than just being hostile to change.

As soon as they came home, Bucky headed straight for his bedroom, leaving Natasha with all the bags of groceries scattered across the kitchen floor.

“I guess I'll put these away by myself then!” Natasha shouted up at him, before letting out a sigh. She'd been doing it all herself for the past couple of months, so it wasn't a big deal but she would've liked at least an offer of help.

Instead of helping her, Bucky ignored her and headed straight for his bed. They hadn’t done much but Bucky was _exhausted_. Even though he had slept most of the day away, just the mental task of having to go outside and spend time with someone was just too much for him and had completely drained him. He crashed on the bed and didn’t even pull his blanket off him, just lay there with his face in the pillow and his feet hanging off the bed - his shoes still on. In a matter of minutes, he was back asleep.

After sleeping for a few hours, Bucky managed to get himself up and could smell the food that was cooking. It was the same as what would happen every Sunday; Natasha would go grocery shopping and then cook all of her meals for the week ahead. Usually Bucky would have no reason to go down and investigate the matter, but this time she was cooking for him as well and he was a little curious as to what she was cooking. Slowly he got out of bed, and it felt like his body was made of concrete with just how stiff he was. But he manage it, just like Natasha had told him, it was all about taking baby steps.

As he started walking, it felt like his limbs started to loosen up, but he still walked at a snail’s pace down to the kitchen. When he entered the kitchen, he didn’t say a word and neither did Natasha, as he went and sat at their small wooden table that could barely fit the two of them. For Bucky, what felt like only a few seconds of him staring off into space, was actually closer to an hour and was interrupted when Natasha brought some food over for the both of them.

 

“We really need to get a bigger table,” Natasha told him as she started to eat the food that she’d made them.

“Yeah…” Bucky told her, his voice quiet and trailing off towards the end.

“I’m sorry, did I interrupt your train of thought by bringing you the first home cooked meal you’ve had in about a month?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking about anything. Just staring off into space, really.”

“Well you should eat. It’ll help. Then maybe we can do something together, like watch a movie or something.”

 

Bucky nodded in agreement and started to eat the meal that Natasha had prepared for him. It was good, but it’s not like it had much to contend with since most of his meals came from a microwave. After they had eaten, they moved up to Bucky’s room to watch a movie together.

 

“Just like old times,” Bucky said with a half hearted smile, as Natasha walked in with a bowl of popcorn for them to share.

“It just might not end like old times,” she smirked, and plopped down next to Bucky. “So have you picked a movie yet?”

“Yeah, I figured we could re-watch ‘The Conjuring’.”

“Fuck if we’re watching that one then I’m not sleeping in my own bed tonight.”

“Fine by me,” Bucky told her and started the movie.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me. The way this is going to be written is as if it's a diary of all the important events in Bucky's life. This chapter obviously being where things start to change. I know the formatting is a bit off, but I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to do this.


End file.
